Third Day Churches, Inc.
P.O. Box 7531
San Diego CA 92167info@thirddaychurches.com
You have complete freedom to reproduce anything posted on this site for the continuation of the conversation concerning "doing church differently in the 21st century."

You may also subscribe to the free monthly newsletter at the bottom of this page.

All donations and gifts to Third Day Churches are extremely appreciated as they help us to resource and release this "permissional" message to the nations.

Please use the PayPal button provided below or mail your gift to the
address above. You will receive a 501(c)3 non-profit tax receipt for
your giving.

When
we look closely at the different aspects and effects of certain numbers
in group life, the question gets raised as to whether or not these
understandings of numerical dynamics can actually help us gather more
intentionally.

So rather than being frustrated with different sized groups, when we
get to know the dynamics of numbers, it is possible we can really begin
meeting more strategically. If permission has been given to do church
differently, why would we insist on meeting the same way, with the same
format, even the chairs set the same way, in the same room, basically
doing the same thing week after week?

Many are feeling significant disinterest with our basic larger weekend
gatherings called "church." Some of that sense of disconnect is not at
all about the need to gather as the church but the sheer boredom with
too many meaningless meetings built around the same old predictable
formats of the "song, sit, sermon syndrome," weekend after weekend.

Meetings or Gatherings?

No matter what we do with changing the meeting format, time, place,
style, we are still called to get together. The Hebrews 10:25 mandate
is interesting in that most translations use the term "assembling
ourselves together." For me personally that was always been a put off.
The first thing that comes to mind is my old High School assemblies,
large meetings where all the students filled the bleachers and the
gymnasium floor for some special, usually boring, presentation.

The word is actually best translated "to gather together"
(epi-sun-ag-ein). It could mean any number of people, even smaller
numbers of people. No set quota of what constitutes a gathering, simply
a gathering together.

Jesus uses the same word in talking about eagles (or vultures as some
translate) gathering around a body (Luke 17:37), and/or a mother hen
gathering her chickens under her wings (Matthew 23:37). It is hard to
see large crowds in all of these pictures, with rows of chairs and
platforms and programs. It seems more about a gathering around
something. Maybe even something more like an intimate circle.

So, yes, we do need to gather or flock together as God's people, and
our verse in Hebrews 10 might even point us towards "more often" as we
see that Day approaching. We do need to be near each other, in
relationship with each other, and in communication with each other in
order to do and be the "one another's" so explicitly laid out
throughout the New Testament.

Sometimes in our exotic attempts to create new kinds of meetings or new
forms or new structures that will bring about that greater new place
with each other, we forget some basic principles.

Life in God, in His family, is not about meetings as much as it is
about His purposes in a meeting. It is what we are gathered around. It
is what He does when we get together, or what He wants to do in the
center of each gathering. It is about a connection not just a crowd, it
is about affection, about fidelity, a feeling of being gathered around
Him as we are gathered with each other.

No new structure will guarantee that, but it is about whatever He has called us to gather around.

Too often doing the same things again and again, giving into the
habitual forms of Christian conformity can become a great enemy to true
community. If we just go to the same pace and do the same things we
assume we will experience community. Not so. It could even be that
these kinds of early gatherings at the end of Acts 2 were not even
planned meetings but really people caught in the act of being unable to
stay away from each other. They just had to keep gathering around their
new found life in Christ, and all that that meant.

We know they had a strict cultural Temple model, it shows up in the
very next chapter (Chapter 3), as the miracle happens on the way to a
certain hour of prayer at the Temple. So I am not so sure that what we
see happening in the end of Acts 2 is because of necessarily a newly
discovered agenda, a new plan, a new liturgy, a new curriculum, or a
new manual, as much as their lives were so radically changed by Jesus,
with many unable or unwilling to leave Jerusalem so they simply had to
drop in on each other as often as possible to share that wonderful new
radical life in God.

They weren't going to house church because of somenewly designed
revelation, they weren't going anywhere, they just couldn't stay away
from each other's homes, and getting daily involved in each other's
lives. Sure, they continued to go to Synagogue or Temple for a while,
but Christianity was well on its way to becoming an unstructured
lifestyle and growing relationships together rather than some new
address to meet at.

We need to pray for one another during these days of transition. Many
seem to echo this idea that they feel they are in what might be coming
out of a "deconstructionist zone" or even coming through a season of
"detox," concerning their prior habits of meeting or gathering with
other believers.

In this season the Jeremiah (1:10) wrecking crew is busy "rooting out,"
"pulling down," "destroying," "throwing down," what seems old, or
antiquated, or non effective in the many ways we have gathered and
seems to bestirring up a great hunger for the for His Manifest
Presence, and a deeper, more authentic community.

I think it feels a whole lot like the first part of the Sunday Night TV
Series "Extreme Home Makeover." You know, the part when the existing
house or structure gets demolished. The needy family is whisked off to
some exotic vacation site as they watch their old house get razed to
the ground via computer from a distant site. And then with full speed
cooperation, the hyper-construction crews begin the remodel, the
rebuild, accomplishing their task in record-breaking time.

Transition seems to always take us to extremes. Either old house or new
house, but with so much work in the middle. Kind of like church, either
fewer meetings or maybe even too many meetings.

We seem to polarize between extremes of passive isolation, try to
survive outside the body in the "just Jesus and me phase," or in the
opposite of the frantic addiction to activities as we jet about looking
for the next watering hole, the next glory fest, the next angel filled
conference, the newest church in town, ad nausea.

We must not become discouraged; this transition of learning to gather
differently will take some time. We are carrying a lot of institutional
baggage as we have done meetings so many certain ways for so many
years. And we don't have to just throw everything out and wing it
either. Instead we get to become even more intentional as we hear God's
voice together on how we are to now gather.

Predictableness or Planning?

If we understand that we have the freedom to gather differently in this
"permissional time," it means we can experiment with more
intentionality and more direction, not less. And that we can actually
use what we have learned about different-sized, different-focused
gatherings to our advantage as well as God's advancement of His work
in us.

We of course could choose by default to let all of our gatherings
remain stuck in the "sit, soak and sour," mode of days past, or
actually and delightfully and intentionally get God's mind and plan for
the different kinds of gatherings He wants to lead us into. He is
very willingly to work with us if we will work with Him.

When preparing to gather, go ahead and ask some leading questions.
Where are you in your walk with God? Where are you in your
relationships with others? So, why are you going to gather with this
certain group? Where do you want God to take you, where do you want the
night to go? What are you willing to do to get there?

Answers to these kinds of questions may help when you know what it is you are wanting or looking for in a gathering with others.

When Looking For Intimacy and Friendship

Try gathering in a smaller group. Maybe even a very small group. Maybe
3 or 4. Gender specific. With the purpose of learning to walk together
as deeply committed, trustworthy and authentic covenant friends (Amos
3:3).

Hang out with these friends in such a way that as Neil Cole (Church
Multiplication Resources) says in his simple outline, you create a
place where sin is confessed in mutual accountability, God's Word is
read repetitively in context and community, and souls are prayed for
strategically, specifically and continuously.

This kind of intimacy and friendship takes time, and will not be the
only meeting you participate in. But it can be a very meaningful part
of your growth together with a few others. Start with an hour or each
week. over coffee, and watch it grow into spending significant quality
time together. In these smaller groups no leader is necessary, no
curriculum is necessary, no is workbook necessary and no training is
necessary. Just a willingness to grow together and to grow up!

Neil Cole's little pamphlet about these small but powerful Life Transformation Groups on his website at: www.cmaresources.org.

When Looking For Family and Faith

Try simple church with 5 to 15 people gathered around a full meal
enjoying the ebbs and flows of life as a family. These
cross-generational meals can include everyone, kids and all. We all
have to eat; we all enjoy each other's presence. And there during the
buzz of the family-like meal we can hear, chat, interrupt, laugh, cry
and pray together as an extended family.

When the meeting gets too large and the family-like dynamic changes, make necessary adjustments, and start new groups.

Do projects together, have outings together, go camping and bowling
together. Involves the kids in different ways, as you basically enjoy
an evening meal together with friends. And all of this can be highly
attractive and contagious to your pre-Christian friends and neighbors,
so keep some places at the table open for others. You just start by
scheduling a meal, inviting others to come, and watch God do the rest.

When Looking For Prophetic Strategy and Spiritual Warfare

Find those spiritual warriors in your community who are fighting and
winning spiritual battles. The ones who know how to pray, how to see in
the Spirit, how to heal the sick and how to operate consistently in the
authority of the believer. Basically, if you want to have a prayer
gathering, find people who know how to pray.

This army is growing everywhere; start asking where they meet, what
they do, and how you can share your specific and strategic needs with
them.

These people are involved in intercessory groups; they are technicians
with the Healing Rooms. Many are covert, and by no means drawing
attention to themselves, and yet their reputations are known by the
Spirit.

When you get together with these kinds of strategic people, the
strategies will come in the meeting. The prayer direction, the national
or international focus points. I heard of one group that watches the
news channel and then pauses it when it calls for a
strategic kinds of international praying.

Looking For Radical Worship and Celebration

Just listen for the sounds; you hear them everywhere these days. From
boom boxes to huge sound systems. From iPods to finely-tuned stereos.
Sounds of war, sounds of intimacy, sounds of celebration. Thunderous
stomps over injustice, sweet, angelic melodious sounds for soaking and
contemplation. Wild and crazy sounds that send you leaping and jumping.
Romantic, and wooing sounds that have you in tears and
silence.

Gather the musicians and singers and dancers around these sounds.
Remember when David set aside the 4,000 musicians and the 288 singers
to sing before the Lord 24/7. Then take these sounds to the streets, to
the city parks, to the apartments courtyards, to the office complexes,
to the coffee houses, to the beaches and of course to the cathedrals
and chapels. Make room for the spontaneous sounds, not just the
pre-learned songs of the day.

Find your own sound that builds with the others. And then give yourself
to the full release of your sound, the participation of the instrument
that you are. It is more about the sound you carry than your
instrumental or musical talent.

Looking For Empowering and Equipping

What about walking through the Scriptures with some friends, asking
freely and openly for insight, revelation and application. Gather a
reading group around a certain agreed upon book, or listen to a CD/DVD
series and discuss it openly. Even discuss it in public places, like a
local coffee shop or a park, or the clubhouse at your apartment
complex. Watch the curious interaction with others that God can cause
in these open settings.

Gather some of your friends around someone's specific life message. A
local teacher or pastor in your community, one of the fathers and
mothers in the faith that you all know can be brought into your group
for great times of teaching and feedback and interaction.

Have several of these spontaneous gatherings to empower and equip each
other. Keep asking God what He wants to say to you, and keep listening,
as He will direct you to invite others who carry a certain timely
message for your group.

Whatever You Do - Do it With Friends

Doing the Kingdom with friends is what Christ modeled for us. Life in
God is not meeting-focused, but is relationally lived. The signal most
pivotal verse in this season of my life about relationship and
connection comes from Mark 3:13,14 as Jesus called the twelve to first
be "with" Him, and then second, to "send " them. Whatever you are
called to do these days, do it with Jesus and with others.

This is no time to be stingy with creativity; this is no time to be
boring or predictable. Do these gatherings with freedom and delight. Do
them with new meaning, with bold intention, and radical passion. And
don't wait for all of these gatherings to be planned and scheduled by
someone else, don't wait for the special announcement to make the
Sunday bulletin. Like Nike said, "Just do it."

This is a new day of getting together. It is time to gather and pursue
deep authentic faith communities all over our region as we celebrate
our Creative Creator.